Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Floating Modular Building

The International Building Exhibition in Hamburg has moved into a new modular floating building: "IBA DOCK" (English Transaltion). The building is made of shipping container sized prefabricated modules. It is not clear if these are actual shipping containers, which would be appropriate, given Hamburg is a major shipping port. The modules are on a a 50 x 26 m concrete pontoon, moored so it can ride over a storm surge. As well as good insulation, the building has a solar powered heat pump to extract heat from the water.